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uptownJimmy

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Google's "search results" are the textbook definition of a monopolized good/service. The whole thing is almost a casino, rigged to the point of absurdity.

There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game.

Whatever you decide, don't assume that it would be hard to find devs.

There are a lot of us who prefer to work for real businesses offering real products/services, and avoid working in the startup world with all its concomitant pipe dreams, wishful thinking and scams.

Google's market share was suffering because they have been using their dominance to force everyone to participate in the "game the search engine" scam that Google was selling, which exists only to cheat the Google search engine.

Once enough of us realized that Google search results are usually just paid ads, what's the point anymore?

It's insane, and "AI" isn't going to fix any of it.

The rot in our tech economy is astonishing.

I remain confused as to why anyone would take VCs seriously at all, much less want to be friends with them. They mostly give strong vibes of "sociopath" and "malignant narcissist".

"One is that these generative AI tools are already good enough to replace many writing tasks, whether it’s writing an article, or a social media post."

Good enough to what? Give me a headache when I try to read any of the articles that Google coughs up when I search almost anything these days?

The auto-generated pap that passes for "good enough" is literally a tsunami of near-meaningless word-porridge that is burying the Web in nonsense. Might as well shove large chunks of lorem ipsum into your "articles" or "social media posts".

Maybe you would deign to elaborate? It's not a fun and informative discussion unless you are willing to offer something more specific than "you are wrong".

Gift us with specifics.

I'm pretty sure the biggest problem with social media is the staggering number of people spreading disinformation and lies. So that's something you can stop doing to help fix the thing you hate so much, right there! It's a win-win for everyone, I'm sure of it.

I miss newsgroups. They were good enough. We didn't need to dress them up.

Our incessant chasing of the latest shiny thing, it's all so silly. We keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater in our endless, desperate forward motion.

I have only read Lem's "Solaris", and I have also watched the Soderbergh movie. But I don't think I've ever read/seen a more profound meditation on the human experience PLUS the possibilities of an encounter with an alien intelligence. Just wonderful, soul-provoking stuff.

Steven Soderbergh's The Limey covers a lot of ground, but I think it expresses as powerful a sense of melancholy as any modern film. Highly recommended.

Though not as technologically impressive, there are quite a few rather "simple" little hydroelectric dams tucked back in the Allegheny Mountains of the eastern USA. They are a marvel to see, worth seeking out if you are driving anywhere near them.

Cheoah Dam is on the infamous Tail of the Dragon in TN, and there's a spot where you can pull over and see the whole thing below, it's such an inspiring thing.

It takes a significant chunk of time for any approvals or change requests to show up in the desktop UI, if ever, without just manual refreshing. This is not a niche observation, fwiw. It's a common complaint.

I guess my implied question should be stated more explicitly: is GitHub's front end code entirely separate fro the Rails code? That's not how Rails apps usually work, I thought.

Admittedly, it's been a long time since I looked at Rails code, and I don't have the slightest idea how GitHub is actually architected. But I don't remember the "front end code" in Rails being a separate thing from the server code, typically: the whole point was server-side rendering. Is GitHub using one of the JS/TS frameworks for the front end? I do remember that being a developing trend, a few years back.

I like GitHub, fwiw. I am not someone who requires everything to be perfect, and I've learned to be tolerant of our human reality, where imperfection is the norm.

But GitHub is not a great Web app. It is frequently/constantly out of sync with the latest data/status. You quickly develop the habit of manually refreshing the page every time you are preparing to do anything with a PR, and that's not something that should be necessary these days.

It surprises me to see a loud and proud blog post detailing GitHub's process of staying so relentlessly up to date with the latest and greatest version of Rails: the app is not properly responsive, for whatever reason, and to a degree that would not be tolerated where I have worked. I would rather read about how they are trying to fix this issue.

"They are making bad choices."

This sort of reductionist, simplistic "reasoning" is going to be the death of us all.

Trying to find a moral failing in every human weakness, every human ignorance, every human desperation? It's just disgusting.

Exercise, sleep, modest portions of good food, rewarding hobbies.

Not that any of it ever permanently fixes my deeper issues with anxiety or depression: I have to run/exercise every morning to feel really good and ready for the day. But I think that's the deeper point: it's the good habits that make life bearable and even (sometimes) enjoyable.